The present invention relates to a system for payment of downloaded electronic content to a storage media. In particular, the present invention relates to a system wherein electronic content to be downloaded is delivered for a fee to a storage media having a predetermined prepaid value, and the fee is deducted from the predetermined value of the storage media as payment for the electronic content.
Protection of copyrighted and other protected digitally stored data has always been a primary concern of the owners of such material. In particular, piracy of computer software, music and video has been and continues to be of great concern because it is all but impossible to stop. Although there have been many prior attempts by the software, music, and video industries to curtail piracy, each has been met with limited success.
As part of the effort to combat piracy, software vendors have licensed software rather than transferring ownership when purchased. When software is purchased, the purchaser becomes a licensed user (i.e., licensee) rather than an owner. Copying of software under most license agreements is generally limited to one copy for backup purposes only in order to legally restrict unlimited copying. In addition, the software license typically grants a right to use the software on a single computer or for use by only one user at any time.
Software vendors have also attempted to combat software piracy by copy-protecting their software. While this attempt was effective to some extent, it failed because users were unable to make backup copies. Also, soon after the first copy-protected computer software was on the market, other programs to copy the copy-protected software became available. Other copyright protection methods were then developed in an attempt to stop piracy, also with limited success. These attempts included requiring a master floppy disk to be inserted into the computer or requiring the user to enter a key or other information contained in the user manual or license agreement when executing the software from the computer""s hard drive. Still others required a hardware key to be present in the computer""s parallel port, which was read when the software was executed. Software vendors received a temporary reprieve when CD-ROMs became the standard media for digital storage and distribution of software, because applications grew to be so large that the only means for copying the software was to xe2x80x9cburnxe2x80x9d duplicates on expensive recordable CDs. However, the prices of recordable CDs and the drives to write recordable CDs have fallen dramatically and pirates can once again produce cheap illegal copies of protected software.
The music and video industries have a different concern than the software vendors. These industries are particularly concerned with pirates making perfect copies of digitally stored music and videos. While copying of music and video for non-commercial purposes is allowed, such copying has historically been performed by tape decks and video cassette recorders using analog recording techniques. Analog reproduction results in decreasing quality with every generation, whereas digital copies are exact and suffer no fidelity loss. As noted, prices of recordable CDs and the drives to write to recordable CDs have fallen dramatically and these drives can just as easily record music to the CDs as they record software and data. Further, with the advent of the Digital Versatile Disk (DVD), full length motion pictures may now be recorded to a single DVD disk. As a result, the music and video industries also have a growing need to prevent copying of digitally recorded works.
Fueling the concern of software vendors and the music and video industries is the rapid growth of the digital age and global communications. In the early 1980""s when the personal computer (PC) was in its infancy and software vendors first attempted to protect their intellectual property, there were few, if any, mass distribution channels. At the same time period, the music and video industries were strictly analog at the consumer level. Thus, piracy was not a major factor as it was limited to small groups of people or organizations. However, with powerful computers on every desktop and the evolution of music and video into a digital format, piracy has become a major factor costing software vendors alone $4 billion a year worldwide. Clearly, the financial loss to software developers, musicians, actors, and their associated industries is immense.
At the root of the global communications expansion is the rapid growth of the Internet, which has pushed the piracy problem to the forefront. As is well known in the art, the term xe2x80x9cInternetxe2x80x9d was first used in 1982 to refer to the enormous collection of inter-connected networks that use Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocols. Despite only gaining mass recognition over the past four years, the Internet has existed since the late 1960""s and was originally designed as a Wide Area Network (WAN) that would survive a nuclear war. Throughout the 1970""s and 1980""s a growing number of small networks developed and connected to the Internet via gateways as a means of exchanging electronic mail. In the mid 1980""s there was a significant growth in the number of available Internet hosts, and since the late 1980""s, the growth of the Internet has been exponential. The growth of the Internet has provided people all over the world with a means to share and distribute information. Thus, the potential now exists for the mass distribution of pirated software, music and video on a global scale. Many Internet Usenet groups and channels on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) are dedicated to the trading of pirated files,-music and videos. Furthering the piracy problem are groups that maintain a high profile and take a great deal of pride in their piracy accomplishments. The piracy problem has grown so large that a new term, xe2x80x9cwarez,xe2x80x9d is used to describe the pirated materials. The Internet now provides a great potential for legitimate sales and distribution of protected software, music and videos, because of its size, speed and penetration into the homes of consumers. However, these very advantages make it easy for pirates to steal expensive, proprietary software that took years to design and manufacture and within hours make it available to anyone, free for the taking.
Protecting intellectual property rights is not the only concern of the owners of such rights. Compensation for use and enjoyment of protected works is also of great concern. Lately, there has been much discussion about commerce over the Internet (so-called xe2x80x9cE-commercexe2x80x9d). In particular, there has been much discussion over payment and transfer of money over the Internet because many buyers are concerned about transmitting credit card information over the Internet to a vendor that may not be reputable. Privacy is a concern as many potential customers do not want to provide personal information to vendors. Because of these concerns, many potential purchasers do not utilize the Internet for their purchases. Still further, a limitation in credit card transactions is that small transactions (e.g., those less than a dollar) are not efficient due to fees charged to sales merchants by the credit card issuers. Because of these concerns and limitations, commerce over the Internet has grown slowly.
In view of the above, there is a need for a secure method and apparatus for electronic distribution of data which will take advantage of the wide distribution of networks such as the Internet, while simultaneously preventing unauthorized and illegal copies of protected works, data and applications and provide an efficient payment mechanism. In particular, there is a need for a method and apparatus which will provide vendors of software, music and videos with a secure means of electronically distributing their works and applications over the large networks, while ensuring that their protected works and applications are not copied and pirated. Further, there is also a need for a payment system wherein small transactions are processed efficiently and consumers can be reassured that they will not be defrauded by unknown vendors and that their privacy (and anonymity) will be maintained. Such a method and apparatus would also ensure that the rights of owners of intellectual property are protected and that owners are properly compensated for their creative efforts.
In view of the above, the present invention, through one or more of its various aspects and/or embodiments is thus presented to accomplish one or more objects and advantages, such as those noted below.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a method of distributing electronic content from a vendor server to a client device via a network infrastructure and for payment to a vendor of the electronic content is provided. The method utilizes a unique identifier of a piece of media to which the electronic content is stored to associate the electronic content with only the piece of media and utilizes a predetermined value of the piece of media as payment for the electronic content. The method comprises contacting the vendor server via the network infrastructure; transmitting the unique identifier of the piece of destination media to the vendor server; communicating, via the network infrastructure, information from the vendor server to a media tracking server to determine if the unique identifier is valid and to determine a remaining balance of the predetermined value of the piece of media; communicating, via the network infrastructure, the electronic content to the piece of media, wherein the electronic content is in an encrypted format; and writing the electronic content to the piece of media such that the electronic content may be accessed for use from only the piece of media.
According to a feature of the invention, the step of communicating, via the network infrastructure, information from the vendor server to a media tracking server, further comprises determining if the remaining balance is greater than a purchase price of the electronic content; deducting the purchase price from the remaining balance to determine a new remaining balance if the remaining balance is greater than a purchase price of the electronic content; and sending an acknowledgment to the vendor server prior to communicating the electronic content to the piece of media. The method may further comprise crediting an account of the vendor of the electronic content. In addition, the method may further comprise notifying the vendor server that the remaining balance is insufficient to cover the cost of the electronic content if the remaining balance is less than a purchase price of the electronic content; notifying the client device that the remaining balance is insufficient to cover the cost of the electronic content; requesting if the remaining balance is to be replenished; and obtaining payment information to replenish the remaining balance.
According to another feature, the step of communicating, via the network infrastructure, the electronic content to the piece of media, wherein the electronic content is in an encrypted format; further comprises determining if an error situation has occurred during the communication of the electronic data; determining if the piece of media is full; and if so, prompting a user to insert a second piece of media having a second predetermined value and downloading the electronic content to the second piece of media. The method may also include reading a second unique identifier from the second piece of media; determining, at the media tracking server, if the second piece of media is valid based on the second unique identifier; and transferring the remaining balance from the piece of media to the second piece of media.
According to yet another feature, the step of transmitting the unique identifier to the vendor server further comprises accessing the one piece of destination media; reading the unique identifier from a predetermined location on the one piece of destination media; and formatting the unique identifier into a first data structure for communication to the vendor server. The predetermined location on the one piece of destination media may be a predetermined track.
According to a further feature, the step of communicating the electronic content to the piece of media, wherein the electronic content is in an encrypted format comprises encrypting at least one of the electronic content and an encryption key to the electronic content, the encrypting using the unique identifier as an encryption key. The electronic content is written to the one piece of media in an encrypted format using the unique identifier as a decryption key.
According to still another features, contacting the vendor server via the network infrastructure comprises submitting, from the client device, a form to the vendor server; executing, at the vendor server, a program to process the form; and sending, to the client device, a metatag and transaction file. The metatag and the transaction file launch a client program at the client device after being sent to the client device, and wherein the client program opens the transaction file and parses metadata from metatags within the transaction file. The client may connect to a server address identified by a predetermined metatag in the transaction file to receive the electronic content. Also, the server address may be dynamically changed as the electronic content is requested from the vendor server.
According to a feature of the invention, the step of transmitting the unique identifier to the vendor server further comprises accessing the one piece of destination media; reading the unique identifier from a predetermined location on the one piece of destination media; obtaining vender information; obtaining user information; building a compound key through a predetermined operation using the unique identifier, the vendor information, and the user information; and formatting the compound key into a first data structure for communication to the vendor server with the unique identifier.
According to yet another feature, the step of communicating the electronic content to the piece of media, wherein the electronic content is in an encrypted format comprises encrypting at least one of the electronic content and an encryption key to the electronic content, the encrypting using the compound key as an encryption key. The electronic content may be written to the one piece of destination media in an encrypted format using the compound key as a decryption key.
According to another aspect of the invention, a system for distribution of electronic content over a network infrastructure to a client device running an application program is provided. The client device includes a piece of media having a unique identifier and a prepaid monetary value inserted therein, and the system further compensates a vendor of the electronic content from a remaining balance of the prepaid monetary value. The system comprises a vendor server containing the electronic content and offering the electronic content for downloading to the client device via the network infrastructure, and a media tracking server that maintains the remaining balance of the piece of media in accordance with the unique identifier. The unique identifier is communicated to the vendor server and the vendor server communicates the unique identifier to the media tracking server to determine the remaining balance, and the vendor server encrypts the electronic content and downloads the encrypted electronic content to the piece of media such that the electronic content may only be accessed from the piece of media.
According to a feature of the invention, the media tracking server determines if the remaining balance is greater than a purchase price of the electronic content, the media tracking server debits the purchase price from the remaining balance to determine a new remaining balance if the remaining balance is greater than a purchase price of the electronic content, and the media tracking server sends an acknowledgment to the vendor server prior to communicating the electronic content to the piece of media.
According to another feature, the media tracking server credits an account of the vendor of the electronic content.
According to a further feature, the media tracking server notifies the vendor that the remaining balance is insufficient to cover the cost of the electronic content if the remaining balance is greater than a purchase price of the electronic content, and the vendor server requests if the remaining balance is to be replenished and payment information to replenish the remaining balance is communicated via the application software to the media tracking server.
According to yet another feature, the vendor server determines if an error situation has occurred during the communication of the electronic data and determines if the piece of media is full, and if the media is full, the application software requests that a second piece of media having a second predetermined value be inserted into the client device, and the vendor server resumes downloading the electronic content to the second piece of media.
According to still another feature, the application software reads a second unique identifier from the second piece of media, and the media tracking server determines if the second piece of media is valid based on the second unique identifier and transfers the remaining balance from the piece of media to the second piece of media.
According to a feature of the invention, the application software accesses the one piece of destination media and reads the unique identifier from a predetermined location on the one piece of destination media, and the application software formats the unique identifier into a first data structure for communication to the vendor server.
According to yet another feature of the invention, the predetermined location on the piece of media is a predetermined track.
According to still another feature, the electronic content to be transmitted to the client device is encrypted using the unique identifier as an encryption key. The electronic content may be written to the piece of media in an encrypted format using the unique identifier as a decryption key.
According to a further feature, the application software accesses the piece of destination media and reads the unique identifier from a predetermined location on the piece of destination media, obtains vender information, and obtains user information. The application software builds a compound key through a predetermined operation using the unique identifier, the vendor information, and the user information, and the application software formats the compound key into a first data structure for communication to the server with the unique identifier.
According to yet another feature, the electronic content to be transmitted is encrypted using the compound key as an encryption key. The electronic content is written to the piece of destination media in an encrypted format using the compound key as a decryption key.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, a media tracking server for use in a system for downloading electronic content from a vendor server to a client device over a network infrastructure is provided. The client device includes an application program and has a piece of media having a unique identifier and a prepaid monetary value inserted therein. The media tracking server comprises a processor which controls the media tracking server in accordance with instructions from an application program, a database, and a communication interface to the network infrastructure. The media tracking server maintains a remaining balance that is associated with the unique identifier in the database.
According to a feature of the invention, the media tracking server is adapted to receive information from a manufacturer of the piece of media, the information comprising the unique identifier.
According to a further feature, the manufacturer further communicates the prepaid monetary value to the media tracking server, and wherein the media tracking server associates the prepaid monetary value to the unique identifier in the database. Alternatively, the media tracking server mat determine the prepaid monetary value and communicate the prepaid monetary value to the manufacturer.
According to still another feature, the media tracking server is adapted to receive information from a vendor server, the information comprising a request to determine a remaining balance of the piece of media based on the unique identifier by forwarding a cost of electronic content to be purchased. The media tracking server may debit the remaining balance of the unique identifier and credit an account of the vendor in the amount of the cost of the electronic content to be downloaded.
Other features of the invention are described below.